Family Update

We went to Jared and Becca's house for the weekend to help with some projects while the ladies attended a retreat. We were also able to celebrate Jared's 25th birthday and Kimberly's 13th birthday at Mom and Dad Barta's.

Heidi will be staying at Becca's for the week to get in some quality time with her.

Julie is down at the Fine Arts Festival this week as a sponsor and accompanist for many of the MMBA students. She enjoys this time down at BJU because she gets to catch up with some friends and see the Tompkins family.

The younger kids have also been having a good time building box tunnels in the garage before we get the boxes all packed and ready to go.

Joe continues to do well at school and is looking forward to coming home for Thanksgiving.

That's the quick update, the rest of us are just excited about the house.

Drywall is in place

The drywall is now in place, they will begin taping this week. We also have countertops and the oak railing in the garage ready and waiting.

A few new pictures.

Pre-Drywall inspection

The pre-drywall inspection went well. We just realized that we needed to add a couple of outlets in the MB closet. We are also having them move the placement of the air conditioning unit outside to be behind the 3rd car garage instead of being close to the guest bedroom.

It was cool to see all the insulation in place and every opening/gap between floors and the outside foamed also. They will begin doing the drywall later this week.

Here are just a couple pictures, they have also begun building the front porch and trimming out the garage.

Pre-drywall inspection today

Sandy and I need to go meet with the builder today and do a pre-drywall inspection. We will be checking all the outlet locations and things that are installed behind the walls....it is so much easier and cheaper to fix those things before the drywall is in place.

Hopefully we will be able to post a couple new pictures later today.

October 10, 2007

We now have garage doors.

No more falling into the basement with the new window well covers. They are also working on the electrical with conduit stretching all over the place.

House progress on 10/5/07

Here is the most recent house progress...we now have a fireplace, bathtubs and duct work everywhere.


Check out all the duct work up to the second floor.




Julie really loves the Arches into her music room.
We never had a fireplace before, may need some guidance on how to use it. But I am sure we will enjoy it.
This is the soaker tub in the Master Bath.
This is the bathroom on the second floor.

Some House History

Earlier this year the Lord really impressed upon us that it was time to change homes. After some looking we found one we would like to build. The developer had just opened up Phase 2 of their plan so we got to choose whatever lot we wanted; they had one large lot (just over half an acre) for no extra cost. It will be great for our family to have some room to play.

The house began as a BIG hole in the ground at the end of August. Here are a few shots as we progressed through building the initial structure.

We are now under roof and all the interior work has begun. It is really fun to watch it move along so quickly.